He continued to kiss me there, searching for the most acute place, and when he found it, I backed up against him reflexively.

"Jack . . . You're not still mad because Dane slept over, are you?"

His hand wandered along my front, charting every curve and plane, pausing at every flicker of response. My body caught a tense, pleasured arch. Dimly I realized he was gathering information, softly winnowing out the pulses and twitches from all the places I was most vulnerable.

"Actually, Ella . . . every time I think about it, I want to bend a crowbar in half."

"But nothing happened," I protested.

"That's the only reason I haven't hunted him down and dropped him."

I couldn't tell how much of the macho bravado was for show, or how much Jack actually meant. I strove for a reasonable, ironic tone, which was difficult as I felt his fingers slip beneath the edge of my neckline. "You're not going to take it out on me, are you?"

"Afraid so." His breath fractured as he discovered I wasn't wearing a bra. "Tonight you're in for it, blue eyes." With indecent slowness, his hand slid over the round, cool weight of my breast. I leaned back against him, teetering on the heels of my silver shoes. The tip of my breast pricked up between his fingers, and he fondled it tenderly, his thumb spurring it into a resilient bud.

He turned me around to face him. "Beautiful," he whispered. His hands went lower, following the clingy knit of my dress. His expression was intent, his lashes half-lowered until jagged shadows scored down his lean cheeks. And he breathed another word so softly I almost didn't hear it. "Mine."

Mesmerized, I stared into those dark eyes and shook my head slowly.

"Yes," Jack said, and he brought his mouth to mine. I responded helplessly, my hands clutching the front of his shirt. His fingers threaded through my hair, fitting over the curve of my scalp, and he concentrated on my mouth, finding deeper angles, more intimate tastes, until my entire body was radiating heat.

Taking my hand, Jack pulled me to the bedroom. He flipped on one of a trio of light switches, and a discreet glow filled the room from some unidentifiable source. I was too unstrung to register much about the surroundings, other than to note that the bed was big and covered in amber quilts and miles of white linen.

I cleared my throat and tried to sound casual, like this was no big deal. "I don't even get cheesy seduction music?"

Jack shook his head. "I usually do this a cappella."

"You mean unaccompanied?"

"No, I haven't done this unaccompanied since I was fourteen."

My breathless laugh ended with a gasp as Jack reached out and tugged gently at the tiny snaps that held the front of my dress closed. The sides listed open, unveiling the full round shapes of my br**sts, my white silk panties.

"Look at you," he whispered. "It's a crime for you to wear clothes." He eased the dress off my shoulders until it dropped to the floor. A severe blush spread from head to toe as I stood there in high heels and panties.

Clumsy with urgency, I tugged at his black shirt, and Jack moved to help me strip it off. His chest was powerful and emphatically defined, the large muscles mortared with smaller ones in between. Hesitantly I touched the rough dark hair on his chest, drew my fingers through it. He felt maddeningly good. I let him pull me closer, his arms wrapping around me, and my hands slipped around to his back. The tickling brush of hair against my br**sts, the long, delicious kisses, flooded me with sensation.

Feeling the way I had molded myself against his body, my h*ps urgently cradling the shape of his erection, Jack eased me back with a smothered laugh. "Not yet."

"I need you," I said, red and shaking. It was something I had never said to a man before. And even as I said it, I remembered what Jack had said in the parking garage: ". . .you know if you start something with me, it'll go to a place you and Dane never went. " It was true. It was absolutely true. I was going to let Jack get close in much more than a physical sense. The enormity of the risk I was about to take scared the hell out of me.

Feeling the reverberations of my panic, Jack pulled me between his thighs and gathered me against his chest. He held me wordlessly, with infinite patience.

"I guess . . . ," I managed to say eventually, "I don't feel all-the-way safe."

"Probably because you're not." Jack hooked his fingers at the side of my panties, drawing them down. "But in a few minutes, darlin', you're not going to give a damn."

Feeling dazed, I let him take off the panties, and I obeyed his urging to sit on the edge of the bed. I tried to reach for one of the silver shoes.

"No," Jack murmured, sinking to his haunches in front of me. He pushed my thighs open with his hands, his face intent.

I tried to close against him. "The light," I said bashfully But Jack pinned me in place, and despite my wriggling objection, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth against me, there, in a full searching kiss. In a matter of seconds I was moaning, frozen in place as the pleasure surged and buzzed with each silky flick of his tongue. It went on and on until the desire was too much, and I clutched his head hard and close. He took my wrists, pulling them down to my sides, and just held them there.

Manacled in his grip, spread open, I breathed in low cries as he gnawed and licked and ate gently into the softness, and the sensation built until my inner muscles began a frantic, involuntary clenching.

Jack pulled back, leaving me floundering. I was weak, desperate, my pulse brutal in its force. As he stood between my thighs, I reached for the front of his pants to unfasten them. My hands felt encumbered, as if I were wearing mittens.